Mis-Conception
by valonqar
Summary: Hermione's pregnant with a half-mudblood, half-ferret baby, Draco's a twat, Ginny can't keep her nose out of everyone else's business, and Harry and Ron have no idea what's going. DMHG HPGW RWPP, post-war 7th year AU
1. Prologue: A Test

_**AN: Hey guys! I swear this isn't going to be the regular old 'Hermione gets pregnant Draco becomes an amazing father and they fall in love forever and ever' fic. It'll be a lot more fun and interesting than that, so I need your support to keep it going! **_

_**Reviews would be much appreciated, and I own nothing!**_

_xx_

_No._

_Nope._

_Absolutely not._

_Not a chance._

_No. No, no, no, nononono..._

Hermione repeated the words in her head like a prayer, as if by repeating them over and over again the stupid white stick might actually listen to her and change it's mind. That could happen, couldn't it? She had always been a big believer in will-power, '_if you dream it you can achieve it' _and all that rubbish that her parents shoved into her mind ever since she was old enough to hear it.

When her mantra didn't seem to work the witch took it upon herself to simply _stare_ at the stick, give it the death glare that she usually gave Ron and Harry when they were being twits, or that she gave her ferret co-head whenever he decided her self-esteem could use another hit and...

_Oh Merlin._

_The ferret._

Groaning, Hermione gave up and tossed the stick into the wastebin in the corner, having to resist the temptation to smack her head against the hard tile as she slid to the floor of her dormatory's bathroom.

Maybe he would be happy about it?

Maybe he secretly really, _really_ wanted to be a father?

_Or maybe Ron will write his next potion's essay all by himself, Hermione! That's likely too!_

There were few things worse than learning you were having a baby at seventeen. She supposed she could have been hit by a bus, or that she could be failing all her cources, or that Voldemort could have won the war and they could all be dead. But there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_, worse than learning you were having a baby who was part-genious, part-ferret.

_At least he's not entirely unattractive_, she thinks to herself, as much as it pains her to admit to it. _At least our baby might actually be pretty, and he's got a nice head of hair on him - I'll just have to pray to Merlin that it's his gene that gets passed on there, because Merlin forbid our unborn child favors my end of the gene pool. Poor thing would never forgive me. Although let's hope it's got my personality, because I don't think I'm suited to raise a carbon copy of Malfoy. He's enough of a twat already, if there's two of them I don't think I'll make it a week._

It's almost shocking to her, how she's managing to think semi-coherant thoughts when she's got the spawn of Malfoy growing in her belly. She thought her mind would be corrupted with thoughts of filthy mudbloods and sex, but all she can think of is the fact that babies have really tiny feet and she really hopes she doesn't get morning sickness because she hates vomiting.

It's shocking, because Hermione thought she would be panicking, but instead she's perfectly calm.

Weirdly calm, actually.

How is she so bloody calm?

_How could she be calm at a time like this?_

She should be freaking out, crying and throwing chairs and hexing the oblivion out of Draco Malfoy before finding a way to get rid of this whole damn situation. Because it's his fault, isn't it? All of it is his fault - he was the one who snuck the firewhisky into their dorm, he was the one who told her that if she didn't drink it she was just _proving _what a wet blanket she was, he was the one who got her wasted, he was the one who kissed her, and he was the one who _insisted_ that condoms were a waste of time, and in her inebriated state she had somehow actually believed him.

A night she barely even remembered, a night the both of them were _thrilled_ to forget, to never talk about again. A night that was a mistake, the lowest moment in the life of a girl who was sick of being ignored, taken advantage of, walked all over, and torn to pieces.

A night that was meant to make her feel better but only made her feel worse.

One bloody, sodding night that left her stomach with a gentle swell and her heart with a terrible sense of forboding and a baby in her stomach whose patriarch was the moderately-redeemed-but-still-a-prick bane of her existance.

Now, apparrently, is the time her body tells her she should panic, and panic she does. Her breath comes in chocking sobs, her heart is beating erradically and she flaps her hands by her side as if she's a little baby bird that couldn't get off the ground trying desperately to fly. _What did she do what did she do what did she do..._and before she knew it she was picking the sticks up from the rubbish bin and snapping them all into pieces, as if if she could get rid of them then the entire situation would be over all together, because _they _were where all her problems came from, it was _their_ fault, and...

"Christ Granger, you wresting a hippogriff in there or something?"

_Oh god._

_Oh god oh god oh sweet Merlin what did she do? What was she meant to do?_

Malfoy's voice rang through the hard wood of the door, a genuine hint of concern behind his sarcastic words. He wasn't _all_ that terrible anymore - at least now he had proven he was capable of human emotions - and Hermione allowed herself to think for a moment that maybe, _just_maybe, he would find it in him to handle the whole thing like a mature adult. That wasn't too much to ask, was it? Was that such an unlikely thing?

But then she remembered when a professor at their school got pregnant and how he had said that babies were a disgusting waste of time, and she went right back to panicking all over again.

"For the love of..."

She heard him _alohamora _the door, but didn't have the willpower in herself to stop him - instead she merely tossed the offending white sticks into the rubbish and gave him a half-hearted smile as he burst his way into the loo, well aware of what she looked like at the moment. Hair all over the place, eyes red and puffy, shirt partially unbuttoned and untucked; she must have looked like death itself. And the look on his face when he saw her confirmed that, desperately trying to hold back laughter with a obvious farcical sense of concern.

"You, uh...you doing okay there, Granger? Because you look just _dazzling_." His voice was laced with sarcasm and amusement and she crossed her arms over her chest angerly, certain it only made her look like more of a disaster.

"Just splended, thank you. I mean, why wouldn't I be?" she snapped in return, and before Hermione could stop it the words were flying out of her mouth like vomit, hanging in the air between them while she had to simply sit back in horror and _watch_. "After all, I _am_ up the duff, so clearly this is a _brilliant_ time in my life. I'm absolutely _thrilled_, can't you tell? What seventeen-year-old witch _doesn't_ want to be eating for two, after all?"

A moment. A minute of dead silence, with Malfoy's face plastered with a look of disgust, and the look on Hermione's a mixture of shock, horror, and complete humiliation.

_Oops. _

It took a few seconds for him to speak, and when he did it wasn't what she had expected to hear at all.

"Honestly Granger, I know you've always been painfully honest and that's cool and all, but next time you're having your little..." he paused, pointing to her lower abdomen with his face scrunched up in revulsion, "_Monthly gift_, please, don't feel the need to share."

_Bloody hell._

Raising an eyebrow, Hermione gave him her trademark '_you're not even smart enough to be in my presence'_ look, refusing to believe that anyone could actually be that daft. "I don't have my period, you complete twit!" she growled, eyes narrowed and all hesitation put behind her. He would have to find out eventually, right? Better sooner than later, and better quicker than slower, like ripping off a bandaid. "There's a bun in my oven, an egg in my basket, a parasite living in my uterus!" His face was still blank, and with a huff she went in for the kill.

"I'm bloody pregnant, alright? I'm bloody _pregnant_."

_Silence._

_More silence._

_More silence._

And then...uncontrollable laughter from the boy across from her. _What?_ "Oh Merlin, Granger, you've done it this time. Gryffindor Princess Hermione Granger, knocked up with the Weasel's baby? The poor thing'll be the ugliest little sod alive; I'd actually feel bad if it weren't so _damn funny!_" Which led to another bout of laughter, one that left steam coming out of Hermione's ears.

_Ron's baby? _The thought was even more revolting than it being Malfoy's, and she had to force back a shudder at the thought of doing _that_ with Ron as she glared the blonde snake down. He was about to get the shock of his life, and Hermione couldn't even feel sorry about it for him.

The bloody twat _deserved_ this. She didn't, but he did. Every single bit of it.

"It's not Ron's, you sod," she snarled, sneering as he continued to quiver with laughter. "This is your baby. _Our_ stinking baby. One big happy family, the three of us are going to be! Isn't that just damn, ruddy _hilarious?"_

_Not so funny anymore, is it Ferret? _His laughter had stopped, and now he was just staring, staring, _staring_ like she had with the pregnancy test, as if if he stared at her long enough he could just make her disappear. A minute passed and he was _still_ staring, something that was starting to honestly creep Hermione the hell out. What was he doing? Why was he _still _staring at her? Was he...

Her next question was answered with the sound of the snake's limp body hitting the tiles, Hermione standing over his unconcious form with one hand cupping her stomach, the other resting against her forehead.

_Well, it could have gone worse._


	2. FlashbackRemedying the Situation

_**AN: Thanks for all the awesome reviews and follows/favourites, guys! I'm so glad you all liked the story!**_

_**Now, as far as reviews go, I'm hoping for at LEAST fifteen before I add a new chapter. Review more than once if you want, but PLEASE, if you're reading it it only takes a couple seconds to review! Good, bad, even just one word means a lot! It'll make the difference between a swift update and a super slow one!**_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**xx**_

_~ flashback ~_

_"Oi, Granger!" _

_Hermione's head snapped up as the portrait leading into the heads common room flew open, a stumbling Draco Malfoy wandering into the room with a grin on his face vastly resembling the Cheshire cat. Merlin, she knew that look. She had seen it far too many times over the past couple of weeks that they had been co-heads, enough times to know that nothing good ever followed it. Nothing good for her, anyways._

_It was actually shocking how nice Malfoy had been to her since they had arrived at Hogwarts. Well, not _nice_, but civil enough that she actually couldn't bring herself to call him an enemy. Every since he had aided Harry at the final battle with Voldemort and become one of the 'good guys' he had stopped with all the mudblood comments, the rudest of his retorts being about the still-present frizz of her hair, or the awkwardness of the Ron/Hermione relationship that had lasted two months total._

_No, he certainly hadn't been terrible, had actually been rather bearable, but now the only thing he was being was very, very drunk._

_"Seriously Malfoy?" Her glare was fixed on his face as he flopped down in the armchair across from her, giving her his best puppy-dog look that contrasted vastly with the sharp angles of his aristocratic features. It wasn't fair that someone who was a complete prick for the majority of his life got to be so damn _perfect_ looking, while Hermione had hardly done a thing wrong all of hers and was stuck in the pre-teen awkward phase. "Where the hell have you been? And why are you so drunk?"_

_He looked thoroughly pleased with himself as he stared her down, the grin stretching across his face crooked and childish and so un-Malfoy like that it actually creeped her out. "Us Slytherin's know how to have a party, Granger, unlike you wet-blanket Gryffindors. All you know how to do is follow the rules and whine to the headmistress." Leaning forward with a mischievous glint in his eye that she would usually relate with a small child, _not_ Draco Malfoy, he cocked an eyebrow at her and smirked wickedly. "You gonna tell the headmistress on me, Granger dear? I bet you would just _love_ to do that, wouldn't you? Merlin knows you're not gonna join me in drinking this." Waving the bottle of firewhisky in her face tauntingly, she could see that her co-head clearly thought he had one their battle._

Not even close.

_"Well, I _could_ tell her, but that would just be proving you right, and we certainly can't have that." Pausing to deliberate a moment, she gave the bottle a once-over before coming to her senses, shaking her head and returning her eyes to her book. "Just go to bed, Ferret. Drink yourself to a peaceful sleep and vomit it all up in the morning. We'll see who's having fun then."_

_There. That would shut him up, wouldn't it? _Of course not_, she knew, because this wasn't just Malfoy at his normal smart-arsey self, but a drunk Malfoy at that. A drunk, annoying Malfoy who didn't know when to shut up, and was clearly enjoying himself far more than he should have been. Chuckling, she watched him take another swig of the drink, not even wincing as it went down his throat smooth as water. _Show-off.

_"I knew you wouldn't drink it," he taunted with a roll of his eyes, as if her not wanting to get drunk with her former enemy on school property was some sort of sign of weakness. "You're too afriad, too much of a good girl to do anything _naughty, _aren't you Granger?" And that didn't bug her, not in the least...it wasn't until his next words that Hermione's eyes narrowed into slits, and her nails dug into the cushions of the couch in sheer anger. _

_"You know, for a Gryffindor and a girl who faced off against Voldemort, you sure are a coward."_

Coward_._

_Nobody, especially not a former follower of the Dark Lord, and _especially_ not a Slytherin,called her a coward. Growling, she ripped the bottle of firewhisky out of his hand and chugged it, coughing slightly but still managing to get the majority of it down smoothly enough._

_It didn't take long for Hermione to feel the effects - she was short, and definitely not a drinker, so it was only moments later that the warm fuzz began to work it's way into her brain. _Uh oh_. She knew she shouldn't have done that, that it was a terrible idea, but it was better than having to listen to him mock her like he was actually better than she was. And it was certainly worth the look on his face, the look of admiration and awe hidden behind a mask of pride, like it was him who had chugged the drink and not her._

_It was a couple of moments before he spoke, leaning forward over the armrest like a predator, and she broke out into a grin at his words. "Look at you, Miss Granger. Looks like you're just as tough as I thought you were."_

_~ End Flashback ~_

"Morning Sleeping Beauty. Have a nice nap?"

Hermione watched with barely concealed amusement from her perch on the closed toilet as Malfoy groaned, slowly pushing himself off the ground while rubbing the back of his head tenderly. The sod had been unconscious for nearly an hour, and while she probably _could_ have dragged him some place more comfortable, like the couch less than twenty feet away, she honestly just couldn't be arsed. After the way he reacted to her news - like a complete twat, and then like a girl - he deserved to lie on the cold tile.

"Thanks for leaving me on the floor," he moaned, sounding like a spoiled child who just _couldn't_ get his way. "Don't tell me you're so lazy that you couldn't even put me on the carpet or something."

Grinning, the witch flashed her gaze to the carpeted floor just outside the loo, the floor that was less than a foot away from where he fainted. Sure, she _could_ have dragged him there, but honestly Hermione hadn't exactly felt like doing him any favours. Any little act of revenge she could pull on him for putting her in her current situation was an act she was going to take full advantage off, even if it was something as small as leaving him cold and unconscious on a hard tile floor. Every bit counted, right? That was what she liked to think, anyways.

Besides, it was always amusing to see the prim and proper Draco Malfoy in a situation that put him entirely out of his element - sleeping on bathroom floors definitely wasn't something she thought happened much around Malfoy Manor.

"I would, but you're not the lightest guy around, and you _know_ it wouldn't be good for the baby for me to do any heavy lifting." She said the words with a trace of glee, knowing full well the mention of him being _heavy _and the reminder of her current situation would set him off even more - even if the mention of the baby set her into a pit of dread as well.

"Right, the whole..." he waved his hand at her stomach as if he couldn't even bring himself to say the words out loud, leaning against the wall with a sigh. "So, what are you going to do to remedy this whole thing? The muggle way or the wizard way?"

Wait, _what_!

_He didn't mean..._

_There was no way..._

_Did he really think..._

_Seriously!_

_Don't punch him, Hermione_, she thought to herself frantically, trying to stop her hands from doing what they were just itching to. _I know he's a twat and a sod and deserves to be fed to Fluffy for dinner, but whatever you do, don't punch the father of your unborn baby. That would just be an awkward story to tell later, although you did do it in third year already...could one more punch hurt? Wait, NO. Don't punch him, don't punch him..._

"Don't punch him..." she muttered to herself, unaware that she was speaking out loud until Malfoy let out an indignant huff.

"_Please_, I'd really rather not go through that humiliating situation all over again. Third year was bad enough." Grumbling, he pouted at her like the indignant child that he was before confusion clouded his features. "Besides, why would you _punch_ me? I like to think that I'm being pretty understanding, considering the fact that _you _ got yourself knocked up, and now aren't even giving me an answer about how you plan on putting this whole thing right, I mean _really _Granger."

_Smack. _

Hermione didn't even realize what she had done until she saw blood coming out of Draco's nose like a fountain, with the ferret moaning and whimpering just as he had five years ago. _I guess things haven't changed as much as I thought they have_. Rolling her eyes, she helped him to his feet before dragging him out of the common room behind her, still wailing like a hurt puppy.

The thought of him being a father was starting to become more and more laughable by the minute.

xx

After she had successfully repaired his nose (not broken has he had adamantly insisted, just minorly injured) and cleaned the blood off of his face while he continued to moan and groan and curse her for being an '_evil, vengeful witch_', Hermione sat herself opposite Draco on the couch across from his armchair, the same positions they had sat in two months prior, before they had brought this whole thing upon themselves.

Hermione still didn't know _what _she had been thinking that night, what it was that told her that Draco Malfoy would be a good idea. It had been partially the firewhisky, she knew that, but she hadn't been _that_ drunk - no, some of the blame had to be placed on her own, twisted mind.

Because it had been the first time that somebody other than her parents had looked at her like she was something more that the wizarding world's beloved Golden Trio, like she was more than just _the smart one_, like she had the potential to be something else, something _more_. And it was the first time that somebody other than Ron had seemed to find her desirable, had looked at her as something more than just a bookish girl who was there to do homework and be the voice of reason for two idiots.

It was the first time that someone had seen something in her that she couldn't for the life of her see in herself, and she had let that feeling get the better of her.

_Pathetic. _She was worse than Lavender Brown, probably even _worse _than Pansy Parkinson.

Just _pathetic._

And now, with him sitting across from her looking genuinely terrified and her with her hand covering her stomach knowing that there was something living in there, something that partially belonged to none other than Draco Malfoy, she had never hated herself more.

But there was no way in hell that she wasn't having this damn baby.

"I'm keeping it. Whether you want it or not, I'm keeping it." Her voice left no room for argument, her eyes stayed firm and fixated on his face as she tried to look as intimidating as possible. Hermione wasn't going to let him bully her out of this one, not a chance. "You don't even have to look at it once it's born if you don't want to - in fact, starting right now you can just go on and pretend like this whole thing never even happened. If you want I can obliviate your memory for you, you'll be none the wiser and..."

Holding up his hand to cut her off, Draco shook his head slowly and brought his gaze up to meet hers. "No sodding way Granger. If you're having this _thing _I'm not going to let you take it for yourself - He's a Malfoy, and Malfoy's take care of their own." Grimacing, he mulled over the implication of his words with a slight shudder. "Even if it means poop or cleaning up messes, he's going to be raised a Malfoy, and that's that."

_No sodding way in hell_.

But Hermione found she didn't have it in her to argue with him - the stress of the day had worn her out, and the world was starting to spin before her eyes. When was the last time she slept? It felt like years ago, and she shook her head languidly as she raised herself out of the couch with ease.

"We'll talk about this later. Right now I need to...I need to...what do I need to do? I need to..._oh god_."

What had she been thinking earlier about morning sickness? That she wished she wouldn't get it? Well, clearly that wish wasn't going to come true any time soon.

"What do you need to do, Granger?" _Oh Merlin, he just didn't get it! _Opening her mouth to snap at him, Hermione was about to come up with a witty retort but came up with something much different, and _much _more unfortunate instead.

"_BLOODY SODDING HELL GRANGER, THESE ARE NEW SILK ROBES!"_

Now _that _ was a memory she would be sharing with the little one for years to come.


	3. An Invention and a Meal

**AN: Thanks for all the reviews guys! I really hope that everyone who reads this chapter reviews it: Good or bad, it's still appreciated. I hope you guys enjoy this, and remember than I own NONE OF IT!**

**now...read...then...review!**

**xx**

Standing in front of the mirror the next morning, Hermione took in her reflection with a curious gaze. _Almost three months pregnant,_ she mused, tracing her hand over the slight bump of her stomach underneath the tight white t-shirt and smiling. A night to mull it over, and when she woke up after hours of working on her experiment she had found herself entirely more calm about the whole time, entirely more accepting and entirely more excited. How was that possible? The night before she had been panicking, freaking out and throwing up all over the father of her baby, and this morning she was _happy_?

Pregnancy brain was entirely what she chalked it up to, and the fact that, Hermione being a fully-functioning girl with girl-like emotions, the idea of having a baby of her own was actually quite lovely. Running her hands over her stomach once more, she sighed contentedly. _Her _little bump, a bump that was all to her own - well, and a bit to Malfoy too, although she tended to pretend like that wasn't the case more often than not.

Her little bump, and a bump that was entirely non-existent in the clear reflection of the frame.

"Once you're done being all weird and stare-y with your reflection, would you mind telling me _what_ this brilliant invention is that you felt the need to wake me up for?"

Malfoy leaned in the doorway of the bathroom casually, taking in her appearance with a silver eyebrow raised. She was sure she knew what he was thinking - _bloody Granger, actually looking pleased with this entire situation. Probably got herself knocked up on purpose so she didn't have to put her baby through the misery of having hair a mixture of hers and Weasley's..._Yes, she could hear the words ring through her ear as if he was actually speaking them outloud, and she rolled her eyes to herself.

He may be slightly less of a git than he was back in the pre-war years, but he was still just so damn predictable.

"Right, well," Hermione grinned as she began, finding herself less annoyed and more excited as she began to speak about her brilliant idea - well, her _latest_ brilliant idea. She had been up for hours charming all of her clothes just right, but she figured that she had it down. "Look at me, not my reflection. In this shirt you can just barely see a bump, right? Well, if it was baggier you couldn't, but I can't bloody well go around wearing baggy sweaters looking like a slob for the next nine months, and eventually I would get so big that even _Ron _would notice." He snorted at that, and Hermione allowed herself a small smirk before continuing on.

"Now look at my reflection. No bump, just a perfectly flat stomach and a perfectly non-pregnant witch." Grinning at his reflection behind hers, she waited for a response before triumphantly adding a, "Tah-dah!" in the hopes that he would now catch on to the fact that this was the moment he congratulated her for being such a damn genius.

And yet...nothing.

"I don't get it," he stated flatly, tilting his head to the side ever-so-slightly and looking at her with confused, and slightly annoyed, stormy grey eyes. "So your reflection doesn't look pregnant. The rest of you does. Unless you plan on standing in front of a mirror this whole time, I don't really think this is the smartest plan you've ever had. I guess with half of your energy going towards -" he waved vaguely at her stomach area once more, still unwilling to say _the baby_, "You're starting to kinda lose it."

Cocky git, thinking that _he _was smarter than her! The tone in Malfoy's voice was condescending, speaking to her as if she were a young child trying to show her parents a new 'invention' she made out of play-dough. Sighing exasperatedly just to get across how _wrong_ he really was, Hermione whirled around to face him and placed her hands on her

"The only reason I look pregnant to you is because you _know _I'm pregnant. No one else knows, so to everyone else I've charmed my clothing and robes to make me look like I'm completely normal." She spoke overly-slow as if she was speaking to someone _far _below her intellect level (which, in her personal opinion, she really was. "Do you get it now, Malfoy? I've placed a perception filter on everything I own - all anyone will see is a normal, healthy Hermione Granger, while you and I get to witness first hand as I blow up like a balloon."

Oh Merlin, she had completely forgot about that part.

In all the energy of the past two days, Hermione hadn't even thought about what would happen to her _during _the pregnancy. Not just morning sickness, but cravings for food - cravings that, now that she thought about it, she had already been experiencing. Like the other week, when she was _desperate _for a pumpkin pasty, so desperate that she had actually gone down to the kitchens and made one herself.

She was craving food, sweets, anything that she could digest, essentially, and Hermione _knew_ what that meant. Her mother wasn't the skinniest of women, although she certainly wasn't fat, and the young witch had worked harder than anyone knew to ensure that she maintained a healthy figure. And now it was all going to be tossed away, simply because her stupid body and stupid hormones were going to betray her and turn her into a waste bin of fatty food.

Was Malfoy...?

_He was._

The git was doubled over in laughter by the doorway, clutching his sides as he brought his eyes up to meet her. "Oh Salazar, it's just..." Wiping tears from his eyes, he was unable to keep the gleeful grin off of his pointy features. "I mean, you've already got the _hair, _and...and now you're going to get _fat!" _This revalation caused him to resume his cackle once more, and, having had enough, Hermione stormed out of the room, tossing her heaviest textbook at him as she went.

His outraged, "_Ouch!" _and the cease of laughter was enough to sent the witch out of the head's dormatory with a smile on her face.

xx

Ron, Harry and Ginny were already at the breakfast table when she arrived, each greeting her with a jovial wave and a "'Lo, Hermione!", although Ronald's mouth was so full that his just ended up sounding like a gurgled mess. _Typical._

As she went to sit down, she realized that she didn't think this would all be so _awkward _for her. Of course, it wasn't uncomfortable at all for them, because they had no clue of what Hermione knew - that she was pregnant with the child of their rival, and that she was actually not all that upset about it because, _hey_, babies were cute, and at least it meant she wouldn't be alone forever with a bunch of cats and some pictures of the good-old-days!

No, they definitely didn't know any of that, and while Hermione thanked her lucky stars that they did, she also found herself kind of wishing that they _did. _Because apart from the whole 'sleeping with the enemy' thing a couple months ago, she told her three friends absolutely everything about her, and they did the same. So what would they do when they found out eventually - as she knew they would - what was going on?

Surely they would be furious that she didn't tell them right away. Hermione would be too, if it had been the other way around. But as she tried to force the words up to her mouth, even just to _test_ it out, she found that they wouldn't go there at all, and she supposed that much was for the best.

What they didn't know couldn't hurt them, right?

"Where you been, 'Mione?" Ron was the first to speak after he finally managed to swallow the bacon that he had been munching on, shooting her a look that was part-worried, part-curious. "I mean, you didn't come to mine and Harry's quidditch practice yesterday like you said you would - you were gonna watch me, 'member?" He actually sounded rather wounded by her absence, and she felt rather bad about it - but then again, the day before she had more pressing things to attend to than a quidditch practice that happened three times a week.

More important things, like her baby.

The baby that was inside of her right now.

_Holy Dumbledore, there was a human inside her and she was sitting at the table like nothing was wrong._

Apparently her calm demeanour that morning had been a false sense of security, probably just her still in a state of shock, because the more she thought and the more her friends stared at her, wide-eyed and innocent and unassuming, the more Hermione wanted to scream. Because _they didn't know none of them knew a freaking baby growing inside her oh god she was going to throw up swallow it down force it down oh god oh god oh..._

"I actually think I've come down with the flu - I was sick in bed all day yesterday, trapped in my dormitory with the Ferret. Don't be angry with me, Ronald, but _pity _me; at one point I heard him talking to his reflection." That actually wasn't a complete lie, as she _had _heard Draco doing just that at one point the day prior. It wasn't the first time, either, but rather a daily routine of his that he wasn't aware she knew of. And she wanted to keep it that way - listening to Malfoy seduce himself was actually rather amusing.

After the three of them had calmed their peals of laughter, she gave Ron a sweet smile. "I'll come to the next one, alright? Promise." And she _did_ promise, because if she had to keep a massive secret from them, then she figured that she could make it up to them by being the best friend to them as was humanly possible.

Even if it meant going to watch a _stupid_ quidditch practice.

Letting out a whoop of celebration, Ron grinned at her before tucking back into his meal, leaving Hermione gazing into the distance as Harry and Ginny decided to get all couple-y. And that was something she _really_ didn't need to witness, not because she was so immature that she thought it gross but rather because she envied them something fierce. Nobody had looked at her the way her best friend looked at the fiery redhead, not even Ron, and it was horribly frustrating.

For a while she had thought, _dreamed_ that herself and Ronald could actually be something brilliant, could be that epic true love that she had always wanted, but with time she found that while to him she was just that exactly, to her he was nothing more than a distraction, something to pass the time while she kept on searching. And as she loved Ron dearly, she really truly did, she had found that she simply couldn't let it go on, with him getting more attached to her every day and her terrified of breaking his heart.

And that's exactly what she did. She broke his heart, and when he found out she was going to have a baby with Malfoy, bloody _Malfoy _of all people, she was going to break it once more.

No, Ronald hadn't been her fairytale love that she had dreamed she was, and even though he loved her with all his heart he had never once looked at her with the admiration that Harry looked at Ginny. She had only been looked at with an expression even _close _to that just once, and she wasn't stupid enough to fool herself that any of that had been real in the slightest.

_~ Flashback ~_

_They continued to shoot back the firewhisky, laughing together in the warm dimness of the head's common room. What time was it? What bloody day was it? Hermione hadn't the slightest of ideas, and for the first time in her life she felt as if she actually didn't need to know something. Because she was drunk, and Malfoy was making her laugh, and she found that shockingly, she was actually enjoying herself in his presence._

_At the moment they were simply asking each other questions, making this current conversation the first civil one that they had shared in ages. No insults were tossed out - all it was was genuine curiosity, and Hermione didn't known until then been so bloody curious about Malfoy._

_"So, what's the deal with you and Weaselbee then?" he asked, much more articulate than her and clearly nowhere near as drunk. At almost a foot taller than her five-foot-three self, it wasn't much of a surprise that it was taking longer for the alcohol to hit him than it was to hit her. "Are you two...well, you know. Riding the hobby horse?" Hermione frowned at his words, a look of clear confusion masking her features. Sighing, Draco rubbed the bridge of his nose before asking. "Are the two of you sleeping together?"_

_Where had that come from?_

_Staring at him in disbelief, Hermione shook her head sharply. She didn't know where on earth he had gotten that idea from, but right away she found that she wanted to clear her name of it, make him believe that she didn't belong to anybody. Why did she even care? That was a question to ask her sober mind - right then, all she cared about was shooting down his question._

_"No. No, no, no. Absolutely not. No. Ron and I've never...we've never...well, we really weren't together all that long." Blushing at the near-admission of her virginity, Hermione tried to downplay it all with a shrug. "We just weren't really very good at being...close. Romantically. He seemed to think we were, but we were just..." In her drunken state words were abandoning her, and the witch was left grasping for something to say like the bimbo she most certainly wasn't. "I mean, being attracted with him was like trying to be attracted to Snape. It just...it was honestly just pretty gross, and a little hard to get through. And Ron never really seemed all that into it anyways. He was just kinda disinterested in the whole physical aspect, which led me to believe he loved me, but wasn't actually attracted to me."_

_Had she actually just said that? Merlin, Malfoy was going to hold that over Ron and her forever. Scrunching up her face, Hermione prepared herself for the onslaught of taunts, and found herself shocked when none came._

_What on earth?_

_"You mean to tell me that when you and Weasel were dating, he didn't _want_ you?" Draco asked in disbelief, and the witch nodded, glancing down at the ground in shame. Of course he didn't want her. No one wanted her. She was bushy-haired, know-it-all Hermione Granger, and when there were girls like Pansy Parkinson, with their pretty little upturned noses and seductive smiles and perfect curves, who would want _her?

_"Sodding idiot," she heard Malfoy mutter under his breath, and her glance flashed to him in shock._

_"What?" _

_As if he had been caught saying something entirely humiliating, the fair-haired wizard looked rather bashful, and with the soft expression on his features Hermione had to admit that he was actually rather...beautiful. Not just handsome, or charming, or seductive, but really rather beautiful, and it was quite an odd thing._

_But with the blink of an eye his confident self was back again, and he moved to sit on the couch next to her in one swift movement, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear as he did._

_"I said that Weasley is a sodding idiot for not wanting you," he murmured, gazing at her with what she could only place as awe and admiration as he spoke and - was this really happening? There was no way, because now Malfoy was pressing a kiss against her jaw, and Hermione was letting out a moan, and oh Merlin his lips felt nice. "I've wanted you for longer than you could ever imagine."_

_Before she knew what was happening his lips were on hers, and suddenly everything else faded into one._


End file.
